Welcome to this new edition of Thyssen Andorra at home.
Today, the artistic director of the Museu Carmen Thyssen Andorra, Guillermo Cervera, dedicates his speech to Simone Martini through his work “Saint Peter“, 1326, which is part of the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza collection.
Simone Martini, an Italian artist born in 1284 and died in France in 1344, is recognized as a representative of the Gothic painting discovered thanks to his master Duccio di Buoninsegna. Belonging to the school of Siena, the artist inherited a taste for the harmony of lines, bright colours and hieraticism inspired by Byzantine art.
The Gothic painting of the Trecento (13th century), is an artistic movement of Western Europe which mainly promotes religious art in a simple way accessible to all as a support for the teaching of moral and civil rules. Characterized by its hieraticism and the use of stereotyped figuration, Gothic painting illustrates little realism, leaving the identification of characters, narrative scenes and their understanding to the symbols that constellate the compositions.
Between simplicity and symbolism, Simone Martini, then one of the best known artists of Siena, finds himself at the crossroads between medieval art and the advances towards the Renaissance, putting into practice new techniques such as the introduction of perspective and feelings in the expression of figures, as well as the abandonment of hieraticism, of which the work “Saint Peter“, 1326, is a perfect example.
